Isaiah 42:1-9
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=isaiah+42%3A1-9
Acts 10:34-43
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=acts+10%3A34-43
Matthew 3:13-17
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=matthew+3%3A13-17
Who are you?
Really. Who are you? It’s a fair question, I think - one that other people ask us, one that sometimes we ask ourselves. Who are you? It’s an interesting question, especially since it seems that the answer changes depending on who’s doing the asking. For instance, if someone church related asks me who I am, I say, "I’m Kayko Driedger Hesslein, I’m the pastor of Emmanuel in Toronto." If someone from Lethbridge, Alberta, where my grandparents live, asks me who I am, I say, "I’m Kayko Driedger Hesslein, I’m Dr. Driedger’s granddaughter." If somebody from my husband’s work asks me who I am, I say, "I’m Kayko Hesslein, I’m Josh’s wife." The answer changes, depending on who’s doing the asking. If someone asks you who you are, you might define yourself in terms of your job; "I’m so-and-so, I’m the fill-in-the-blank at this company." You might define yourself in terms of your family; "I’m so-and-so, I’m the mother/grandfather/ cousin of that person." Depending on the situation, you might say who you are in relation to something that you own; "I’m so-and-so; I own the grey Toyota." Or, the broken TV, or the gas lawnmower. You get the idea. And all of these different answers mean different things to different people. Saying I’m the pastor of Emmanuel means something to people who go to church, and something less to people who don’t. Some people respect me more because of it, and some people less. Saying I’m the granddaughter of Dr. Driedger changes people’s perceptions of me if they know who he is, and does absolutely nothing if they don’t. How we define ourselves does change how people see us.
Likewise, how others define us changes the way we see ourselves. Little Gabriella who is being baptized this morning is the daughter of Ken and Maple Kyriacou, and the little sister of Anna Rose. That probably doesn’t mean anything to Gabriella right now, but one day, that definition will. Hopefully it will help her to see herself as part of a rich heritage of Filipino and Greek culture, hopefully it will help her to see herself as a valuable member of an extended family.
Each of you has, no doubt, been described in different ways by different people throughout your lives, and some of these descriptions have probably made a difference in your life - to how you think of yourself and to who you think you are.
For instance, if you have older siblings, you’ll know what it’s like, and how it’s affected your life, to be known as their younger brother or sister. If you’re the youngest in the family, being known as "the baby of the family" has probably helped shape your self-identity. If you’re the oldest, being defined as "the one in charge" has probably had an effect on who you are. If you’re the middle child, well, those who are named as "middle children" grow up with their own set of unique characteristics.
Our definitions of ourselves, and other people’s answers to the question of who we are can build us up, or bring us down. They shape us, for good or evil, throughout our lives. I’m sure that each one of you can remember someone describing you in a way that led you to be a better person. I’m also sure that each one of you can remember someone describing you in a way that made you a little less secure about yourself. Who we say we are, and who others say we are, has a great impact on the people we come to be.
And so we come to today - the day we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. Now, baptism is many things. It is the forgiveness of sins, the promise of salvation, the sealing of the covenant between God and us, the gift of unconditional grace in the form of water. But it is also a time when we are given a new way of describing ourselves. It is a time when we are given a new identity, a new answer to the question, "Who are you?"
It all starts with Jesus. According to the Gospel of Matthew - and it’s different in every Gospel, Jesus’ baptism by John led to a new definition of who he was. When the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended on him, the voice of heaven described him as "my Son, the Beloved." Now that’s a title - that’s a description that’s going to change your life. You can’t go back to being plain old Jesus from Galilee when you’ve just been proclaimed as the Beloved Son of God. Who are you? I’m Jesus, the Son of God, but really I just run a carpentry business in Nazareth. Uh uh - no way. You have a new identity. You’re on a new path after that. Jesus’ path led him away from being a carpenter in Galilee to being a healer who wandered through Israel, a Messiah who proclaimed God’s love to all, and ultimately, to being a Saviour whose death and resurrection redeemed the world. Jesus’ life was completely changed from what he thought it might have been, growing up, all because he had been baptized and received a new identity, all because he was now known as God’s Son.
But Jesus isn’t the only one given a new identity - he’s just the first. When you were baptized, you, too, were given a new identity, a new way of describing yourself: Who are you? You’re a child of God. Right now, little Gabriella is just Gabriella, daughter of Maple and Ken. But in about ten minutes, after she’s been baptized, she’s going to be Gabriella, child of God.
And this new description changes things, it changes who you are. You are no longer just your job description, or who you are in relation to your genetic family - you are a child of God. You are a sister or brother of Jesus Christ. You are a sister or brother to every other Christian in the world. You are a sinner who has been transformed into a saint.
When you were washed in the waters of baptism, the same water used for those who live in royalty and those in poverty, the same water for those who become Saviours of the world and for those who struggle in sin, when you were washed in those waters, you became the equal of every single other person in the world. You aren’t any greater than anybody else - being a child of God doesn’t make you superior to anybody, but, you aren’t any less than anybody else, either. There is nobody in the world who is more valuable than you, because you are God’s child. You are deeply loved and made new in Christ.
And this means that it doesn’t matter who you or other people say you are, or how they describe you. Whether you are the president of the organization or the one who’s never going to get a promotion, whether you are the person who has what it takes or the one who can’t get it together, whether you are the best parent in the world or the one whose kids have no respect for anybody, whether you’re a saint or a sinner, it’s totally irrelevant. Take the best description of yourself and the worst and throw them both away. If you’ve been baptized, none of those things make any difference to who you are. You are a child of God, and that’s all that people need to know about you. It’s all you need to know about yourself.
Who are you? Today as we celebrate the baptism of Our Lord, and baby Gabriella’s baptism, we are reminded of our own baptism, and who we have become through that. And as you go through your week, as you define yourself and are defined by others, keep this first and foremost in your thoughts: Who are you? You’re a baptized child of God, beloved. Amen.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Sun, Jan 2, 2005 - The Light Shines
John 1:1-18
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=john+1%3A1-18
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
"I don’t get it." "I don’t understand." How many times a week do you say or hear that? It’s a phrase we use constantly, sometimes in puzzlement, sometimes in annoyance. And sometimes in a tone of frustration. "I can’t understand what’s going on. I don’t get why these things are happening to us." There’s a lot we don’t get in the world. There’s a lot we don’t understand. One of the things that is particularly hard to understand is the darkness of the world we live in, the seeming absence of any hopeful light. Even though Christmas was a week and a half ago, and even though we proclaimed then that there was light in the darkness, I wouldn’t be surprised if the glow of Christmas was over quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right back where you were before Christmas, wondering where all the light and love in the world has gone. One of the consequences of living in the world today is that we are constantly engulfed by darkness - it doesn’t stop because of Christmas. You only have to watch the news at night, especially with the tsunami coverage, to start thinking, "What has happened to our world? Where are all the good things? Doesn’t anything go right anymore?" With all the darkness surrounding us, it becomes difficult to for us to comprehend the light that is shining in our midst. We have a hard time understanding how that light can continue to shine. We have a hard time even grasping hold of the idea that there is a light shining amongst all this darkness.
The truth is that there is darkness in the world, we can’t ignore it. But we know that the light came into the world because of this darkness, and the only way to truly comprehend the brilliance of that light is to fully realize the depth of the darkness. Jesus was born in the middle of the night, that time when we’re laying in bed and things seem their utter worst. Jesus wasn’t born at noon, when the sun is shining and all our cares seem like nothing. Jesus came during that time when our world looked the blackest, in order to bring light to the deepest dark.
And even though we are Christians, that doesn’t make us immune to the despair that engulfs others. Our midnights are just as tortuous as an atheist’s. Our darkness is just as black. Sometimes, Christians find it even harder to recognize the light than non-Christians. I don’t know why - I suspect it is because the devil gets a bigger kick out of seeing Christians struggle. But the point is that we do have dark nights, when we can’t see the light that we know is supposed to be there - or if we can see it, we struggle to understand how or why it is even shining. These nights can last a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, or even longer. Many of the psalmists wrote about the seeming hopelessness of the night.
The fact is, though, that there is hope. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, we are constantly reminded that where there is darkness, there is God. And where there is God, there is light. John starts his Gospel with "In the beginning." But there’s another beginning. "In the beginning, the world was a dark, formless void." Genesis. It almost sounds like our world - a dark and formless void. The Hebrew word that describes this state of being is "tohu abohu" and it means a rolling, churning, chaotic mess. Sound like life around you? But God was there too, present in all the rolling and churning and chaos, just like God is present in all the chaos of our life. And God who is not willing that the darkness should rule our life, said, "Let there be Light!" And there was light! In the midst of the darkness, suddenly there was light! It illumined the dark, and ordered the world, and brought form to the chaos. The light changed this "tohu abohu" into the earth, teeming with life - animals, plants, and us. God wasn’t daunted by all that darkness. The void wasn’t an obstacle. In the same way, God isn’t daunted by all the darkness we encounter now. War, famine, disease. None of these things are enough to prevent God from bringing the light into our world. To shine in the darkest dark, and the longest night.
So why do we have such a hard time seeing this light? Why is it so difficult for us to understand how God’s light can shine in the midst of our human darkness? We know the light is there; we’ve been told it’s there, over and over, we celebrated it not more than nine days ago. Yet we still have despairing nights, and we still hang our heads over the evening news. What we know with our head, we don’t seem to get with our heart. We think, "Well, I’m Christian. Why is it so hard for me to find the light?" We search blindly in the darkness, trying to find this light that brings life, trying to understand why it’s there. The light shines in our darkness, and we cannot comprehend it.
One of my favourite artists is Bev Doolittle. http://www.bnr-art.com/doolitt/sentinal.htm Her works are paintings of scenery; snowy birch forests, rocky escarpments with rivers rushing underneath, things like that. However, what makes her paintings so unique is that within each picture are hidden various animals: wolves, Indian ponies, bears, eagles. When you look at each painting, you have to search for what is camouflaged. I used to spend hours staring at these paintings, not seeing a thing, until one of my sisters would show up. She would point out a tail, or an outline of an ear, and then suddenly, "I get it! I see it! There it is!" It was like finding lost treasure. I knew something was there, but I needed somebody to help me find it.
We need help to see the light. God knows we can’t do it on our own. Have you ever noticed how when you’re in the midst of a depression, it takes somebody else to pull you out of it, to show you the way out of your dark cave into the light? God knows this. So two thousand years ago, when the world seemed its darkest, God sent people to show us that the light is shining. God sent somebody to point out the tails, and ears, until we finally exclaim, "I get it!" God sent messengers to proclaim the good news, to announce salvation to all the nations of the earth. John the Baptist was one of these messengers. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe. God showed John who Jesus was, so that John in turn might show us. Luckily for us, John did more than just point out a tail or an ear. John pointed out the whole thing. He said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" John helped us to understand that the light which came into the world was Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He helped us to comprehend that the light shines in the darkness in order to bring us life.
So what is this light like? Well, first of all, it continues to shine, even when we can’t recognize it and when the darkness around us threatens to extinguish everything. It’s actually quite interesting, because in the original Greek, it says "The light shines in the darkness." Shines is a present tense verb - not "the light shone in the darkness." No, the light shines. I think the use of the present tense was very deliberate. The light is still shining, right now. This minute. And it will continue to keep on shining for as long as we are here. Even when we feel caught up in darkness, knowing the light is there but not being able to see it, it’s shining. Nothing can put it out. The light shines into the darkest corners of our lives, and banishes all of the shadows. The light sets everything ablaze. With that light, we get the most miniscule detail. But the most important thing we get, the most important thing we understand is that despair and darkness do not have the last word. The terrible things that we live through in this world, the losses we suffer are not the end. The night that seems endless has a dawn, for the simple reason that God is there in the darkness, creating light.
The author of the Gospel of John wrote: What has come into being in the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people. In the midst of the darkness that encompasses the world, we know and with the help of God’s messengers we understand that this light is God. This light is hope, and love, and life, all wrapped up in a tiny baby boy named Jesus. That is why we come to church, even though Christmas is over, to hear, again and again, about the light has been brought into the world. To hear that this light continues to shine, regardless of all the darkness around it.
I would like to end with the words from hymn 49 in the LBW. "O Saviour of our fallen race, O Brightness of the Father’s face, O Son who shared the Father’s might before the world knew day or night, O Jesus, very Light of light, our constant star in sin’s deep night: Now hear the prayers your people pray throughout the world this holy day. O Christ, Redeemer virgin-born, let songs of praise your name adorn, whom with the Father we adore and Holy Spirit evermore." As we begin another new year, let us remember that in the midst of all the darkness we encounter, God is there, too, causing the light to shine and bringing life to us all.
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=john+1%3A1-18
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
"I don’t get it." "I don’t understand." How many times a week do you say or hear that? It’s a phrase we use constantly, sometimes in puzzlement, sometimes in annoyance. And sometimes in a tone of frustration. "I can’t understand what’s going on. I don’t get why these things are happening to us." There’s a lot we don’t get in the world. There’s a lot we don’t understand. One of the things that is particularly hard to understand is the darkness of the world we live in, the seeming absence of any hopeful light. Even though Christmas was a week and a half ago, and even though we proclaimed then that there was light in the darkness, I wouldn’t be surprised if the glow of Christmas was over quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right back where you were before Christmas, wondering where all the light and love in the world has gone. One of the consequences of living in the world today is that we are constantly engulfed by darkness - it doesn’t stop because of Christmas. You only have to watch the news at night, especially with the tsunami coverage, to start thinking, "What has happened to our world? Where are all the good things? Doesn’t anything go right anymore?" With all the darkness surrounding us, it becomes difficult to for us to comprehend the light that is shining in our midst. We have a hard time understanding how that light can continue to shine. We have a hard time even grasping hold of the idea that there is a light shining amongst all this darkness.
The truth is that there is darkness in the world, we can’t ignore it. But we know that the light came into the world because of this darkness, and the only way to truly comprehend the brilliance of that light is to fully realize the depth of the darkness. Jesus was born in the middle of the night, that time when we’re laying in bed and things seem their utter worst. Jesus wasn’t born at noon, when the sun is shining and all our cares seem like nothing. Jesus came during that time when our world looked the blackest, in order to bring light to the deepest dark.
And even though we are Christians, that doesn’t make us immune to the despair that engulfs others. Our midnights are just as tortuous as an atheist’s. Our darkness is just as black. Sometimes, Christians find it even harder to recognize the light than non-Christians. I don’t know why - I suspect it is because the devil gets a bigger kick out of seeing Christians struggle. But the point is that we do have dark nights, when we can’t see the light that we know is supposed to be there - or if we can see it, we struggle to understand how or why it is even shining. These nights can last a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, or even longer. Many of the psalmists wrote about the seeming hopelessness of the night.
The fact is, though, that there is hope. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, we are constantly reminded that where there is darkness, there is God. And where there is God, there is light. John starts his Gospel with "In the beginning." But there’s another beginning. "In the beginning, the world was a dark, formless void." Genesis. It almost sounds like our world - a dark and formless void. The Hebrew word that describes this state of being is "tohu abohu" and it means a rolling, churning, chaotic mess. Sound like life around you? But God was there too, present in all the rolling and churning and chaos, just like God is present in all the chaos of our life. And God who is not willing that the darkness should rule our life, said, "Let there be Light!" And there was light! In the midst of the darkness, suddenly there was light! It illumined the dark, and ordered the world, and brought form to the chaos. The light changed this "tohu abohu" into the earth, teeming with life - animals, plants, and us. God wasn’t daunted by all that darkness. The void wasn’t an obstacle. In the same way, God isn’t daunted by all the darkness we encounter now. War, famine, disease. None of these things are enough to prevent God from bringing the light into our world. To shine in the darkest dark, and the longest night.
So why do we have such a hard time seeing this light? Why is it so difficult for us to understand how God’s light can shine in the midst of our human darkness? We know the light is there; we’ve been told it’s there, over and over, we celebrated it not more than nine days ago. Yet we still have despairing nights, and we still hang our heads over the evening news. What we know with our head, we don’t seem to get with our heart. We think, "Well, I’m Christian. Why is it so hard for me to find the light?" We search blindly in the darkness, trying to find this light that brings life, trying to understand why it’s there. The light shines in our darkness, and we cannot comprehend it.
One of my favourite artists is Bev Doolittle. http://www.bnr-art.com/doolitt/sentinal.htm Her works are paintings of scenery; snowy birch forests, rocky escarpments with rivers rushing underneath, things like that. However, what makes her paintings so unique is that within each picture are hidden various animals: wolves, Indian ponies, bears, eagles. When you look at each painting, you have to search for what is camouflaged. I used to spend hours staring at these paintings, not seeing a thing, until one of my sisters would show up. She would point out a tail, or an outline of an ear, and then suddenly, "I get it! I see it! There it is!" It was like finding lost treasure. I knew something was there, but I needed somebody to help me find it.
We need help to see the light. God knows we can’t do it on our own. Have you ever noticed how when you’re in the midst of a depression, it takes somebody else to pull you out of it, to show you the way out of your dark cave into the light? God knows this. So two thousand years ago, when the world seemed its darkest, God sent people to show us that the light is shining. God sent somebody to point out the tails, and ears, until we finally exclaim, "I get it!" God sent messengers to proclaim the good news, to announce salvation to all the nations of the earth. John the Baptist was one of these messengers. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe. God showed John who Jesus was, so that John in turn might show us. Luckily for us, John did more than just point out a tail or an ear. John pointed out the whole thing. He said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" John helped us to understand that the light which came into the world was Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He helped us to comprehend that the light shines in the darkness in order to bring us life.
So what is this light like? Well, first of all, it continues to shine, even when we can’t recognize it and when the darkness around us threatens to extinguish everything. It’s actually quite interesting, because in the original Greek, it says "The light shines in the darkness." Shines is a present tense verb - not "the light shone in the darkness." No, the light shines. I think the use of the present tense was very deliberate. The light is still shining, right now. This minute. And it will continue to keep on shining for as long as we are here. Even when we feel caught up in darkness, knowing the light is there but not being able to see it, it’s shining. Nothing can put it out. The light shines into the darkest corners of our lives, and banishes all of the shadows. The light sets everything ablaze. With that light, we get the most miniscule detail. But the most important thing we get, the most important thing we understand is that despair and darkness do not have the last word. The terrible things that we live through in this world, the losses we suffer are not the end. The night that seems endless has a dawn, for the simple reason that God is there in the darkness, creating light.
The author of the Gospel of John wrote: What has come into being in the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people. In the midst of the darkness that encompasses the world, we know and with the help of God’s messengers we understand that this light is God. This light is hope, and love, and life, all wrapped up in a tiny baby boy named Jesus. That is why we come to church, even though Christmas is over, to hear, again and again, about the light has been brought into the world. To hear that this light continues to shine, regardless of all the darkness around it.
I would like to end with the words from hymn 49 in the LBW. "O Saviour of our fallen race, O Brightness of the Father’s face, O Son who shared the Father’s might before the world knew day or night, O Jesus, very Light of light, our constant star in sin’s deep night: Now hear the prayers your people pray throughout the world this holy day. O Christ, Redeemer virgin-born, let songs of praise your name adorn, whom with the Father we adore and Holy Spirit evermore." As we begin another new year, let us remember that in the midst of all the darkness we encounter, God is there, too, causing the light to shine and bringing life to us all.
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